Radioesperimenti per il rover marziano insabbiato

Ho ricevuto un comunicato stampa relativo alla missione dei "rover" i veicoli robotizzati che ancora percorrono il suolo del pianeta marte. Uno dei due, Spirit (l'altro si chiama Opportunity) è purtroppo insabbiato e come tutti i veicoli insabbiati, ogni tentativo di liberarlo dall'impatanamento non fa che scavare solchi più profondi. A quanto affermano gli scienziati dell'ente spaziale americano questo non impedirà a Spirit di continuare a essere utile ancora per qualche tempo e sarà comunque grasso che cola considerando che la durata della missione doveva essere di pochi mesi ma Spirit è lì che scorrazza da sei anni.

Uno dei possibili esperimenti che Spirit potrà effettuare anche da fermo riguarda la trasmissione e la ricezione di segnali radio che aiuteranno a determinare con precisione le piccole deformazioni orbitali, i "wobbles", del pianeta marte. Le informazioni tecniche sulle telecomunicazioni a bordo dei rover sono abbondantemente disponibili in rete ma si deve comunque fare un certo lavoro di filtraggio. A bordo di ciascun rover ci sono tre antenne, una ad alto guadagno per la X-band satellitare (tra i 7 e gli 8 GHz), le altre a basso guadagno e per le comunicazioni a velocità più bassa in UHF (400-450 MHz). I rover sono in grado di comunicare direttamente a terra con le parabolone giganti della Deep Space Network (una delle stazioni è vicina a Madrid e ha un bellissimo sito). Ma il grosso delle comunicazioni avviene con l'intermediazione di un gruppo di satelliti in orbita intorno a Marte: Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor e Mars Express.
Ho preparato questa lista di documenti correlati, guardate soprattutto il primo, intitolato Mars Exploration Rovers: Telecom System Design and Operation Highlights. Ho parlato di protocolli per la comunicazione spaziale e applicazioni SDR in un post del 2007. L'argomento è trattato in uno dei documenti qui riportati, la Overview of Space Links Protocols.

http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/38249/1/04-0604.pdf

http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/38277/1/03-2575.pdf

http://astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-mars-communication.htm

http://www.coe.montana.edu/ee/rwolff/EE580/final%20projects/Deep_Space_communication.pdf

http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/130x0g1s.pdf

http://hobbiton.thisside.net/rovermanual/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23973200/Deep-Space-Communication

Spirit Faces Uncertain Future as New Year Dawns
12.31.2009


Dec. 31 , 2009: This Sunday, NASA's Mars rover Spirit will mark six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet. However, the upcoming Martian winter could end the roving career of the beloved, scrappy robot.
Spirit landed on Mars at 8:35 p.m. PST on Jan. 3, 2004, and its twin Opportunity arrived at 9:05 p.m. Jan. 24, 2004. The rovers began missions intended to last for just three months but which have instead gone on for six Earth years, or 3.2 Mars years. During this time, Spirit has found evidence of a steamy and violent environment on ancient Mars that was quite different from the wet and acidic past documented by Opportunity, which has been operating successfully halfway around the planet.
A sand trap and balky wheels are challenges to Spirit's mobility that could prevent NASA's rover team from using a key winter-survival strategy. The team might not be able to position the robot's solar panels to tilt toward the sun to collect power for heat to survive the severe Martian winter.
Nine months ago, Spirit was driving across a place called "Troy" when its wheels broke through a crusty surface layer into loose sand. Efforts to escape this sand trap barely have budged the rover. The rover's inability to use all six wheels for driving has worsened the predicament. Spirit's right-front wheel quit working in 2006, and its right-rear wheel stalled a month ago. Surprisingly, the right-front wheel recently resumed working, though intermittently. Drives with four or five operating wheels have produced little progress and the latest attempts have resulted in the rover actually sinking deeper in the soil.
"The highest priority for this mission right now is to stay mobile, if that's possible," says Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He is principal investigator for the rovers.
If mobility is not possible, the next priority is to improve the rover's tilt, while Spirit is able to generate enough electricity to turn its wheels. Spirit is in the southern hemisphere of Mars, where it is autumn, and the amount of daily sunshine available for the solar-powered rover is declining. This could result in ceasing extraction activities as early as January, depending on the amount of remaining power. Spirit's tilt, nearly five degrees toward the south, is unfavorable because the winter sun crosses low in the northern sky.
Unless the tilt can be improved or winds lessen the gradual buildup of dust on the solar panels, the amount of sunshine available will continue to decline until May 2010. During May, or perhaps earlier, Spirit may not have enough power to remain in operation.
"At the current rate of dust accumulation, solar arrays at zero tilt would provide barely enough energy to run the survival heaters through the Mars winter solstice," says Jennifer Herman, a rover power engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The team is evaluating strategies for improving the tilt even if Spirit cannot escape the sand trap, such as trying to dig in deeper with the wheels on the north side. In February, NASA will assess Mars missions, including Spirit, for their potential science versus costs to determine how to distribute limited resources. Meanwhile, the team is planning additional research about what a stationary Spirit could accomplish as power wanes.
"Spirit could continue significant research right where it is," says Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, deputy principal investigator for the rovers. "We can study the interior of Mars, monitor the weather and continue examining the interesting deposits uncovered by Spirit's wheels."
A study of the planet's interior would use radio transmissions to measure wobble of the planet's axis of rotation, which is not feasible with a mobile rover. That experiment and others might provide more and different findings from a mission that has already far exceeded expectations.
"Long-term change in the spin direction could tell us about the diameter and density of the planet's core," says William Folkner of JPL. He has been developing plans for conducting this experiment with a future, stationary Mars lander. "Short-period changes could tell us whether the core is liquid or solid."
http://www.nasa.gov/rovers